Milo
EVERYONE COPES WITH breakups differently.
For me, the easiest thing to do was lose myself in other people’s attention.
I always had a long list of people hovering around me, waiting for me to be single.
It was a cruel joke. My instability was exciting, dangerous, and fun.
People liked the idea of me, but only when that was all it was—an idea.
After every failed relationship, I told myself I’d try something casual, but I was delusional. There was no way I could do casual, not when the only time I ever tried a one-night stand ended with me crying. Without the emotional connection, everything felt wrong.
I didn’t usually use dating apps, but I installed one after I was discharged from the hospital for the third time.
I spent a good twenty minutes in bed, swiping left and right through men and women.
I’d never actually been with a guy before, but I had a sickly, gaping void to fill. All attention was good attention.
“What’s your point?” I shifted on my bed and glared at him, locking the screen and letting it go black. “You said not to have anyone over, so this is the next best thing.”
“Oh, so I’m the reason you have to browse dating apps twenty minutes after you got out of a shit relationship and nearly killed yourself? Nice.” He didn’t hold back.
I didn’t so much as flinch at his words. He’d said far worse things to me before from the same place of brutal honesty. I translated the scathing remark the same way I always did.
I’m worried about you.
“What else am I supposed to do?” I asked, sitting up and crossing my legs.
“Take a fucking break, like a normal person.” He rubbed his face, leaving his glasses askew.
My nose scrunched at the subtle jab about being normal. “Have you tried minding your own business?”
“You are my business, dumb ass.”
Brotherly love at its finest. The tough love kept me on my toes, making me value his opinion more than anyone else. Except when it came to the people I should date, there was no helping me in that area. I was a lost cause.
“Quit judging me, asshole.” I huffed.
“No. Someone has to.” He smirked, and I wanted to punch it clean off his face.
“I’m going to order dinner tonight.” Jasper poked my forehead. “And you’re going to eat it. Understood?”
“Roger that, Dad,” I mocked.
“Good.” Satisfied with my response, Jasper left my bedroom and closed the door.
I returned my attention to my phone, which had begun to buzz with notifications. There were more matches on the dating app, and a few texts from friends.
Completely against doctor’s orders—AKA Jasper—I was already plotting the sickest get-together ever.
Our house parties were always pretty wild; thanks to a handful of party games we played that almost always spiralled out of control.
One time, it had even ended in an orgy, not that I’d participated.
If I couldn’t manage a casual hookup, an orgy was definitely out of the question.
In the meantime, I needed to be a little responsible and get my shit together.
The bills wouldn’t pay themselves, and Jasper couldn’t pick up my slack forever.
The world hadn’t stopped spinning because I’d tried to kill myself, and I had one extra bill this month—a five-hundred-dollar ambulance fee, the little cherry on top of my attempted-suicide cake.
I made decent money as a photographer, and living in a shithole meant rent was affordable, so I had a lot of flexibility to take the time off I needed. A few rapid-fire mini-sessions in a rented space would catch me up in no time. All I had to do was put up the ad, and I’d be on my way.
Or I could die and never have to think about work again.
The dark thought crept in without provocation, impossible to shake off. Though I usually loved my job, right now the idea of working filled me with dread. I still wanted to disappear. There was only one problem, and it had dark brown hair and wore glasses.
What kept me going was the moment we shared in the car outside Mom’s place.
It played over in my head on a loop, what he’d said and the way he’d touched the scar on my palm.
My skin prickled with goosebumps at the memory.
It made me wonder if he’d kept the vial of blood from our pact we’d made as teens.
I remembered that night perfectly.
“You’re sure about this?” I asked, flexing my fingers around the steak knife we’d smuggled from the kitchen.
“Hell yeah, let’s do it.” Jasper nodded, staring at me intently from where he sat cross-legged, two vials with corks between us on the floor.
Usually, the crazy shit was my idea, not his.
When he suggested doing a blood bond, my stomach had done a nauseating little back-flip, the kind I usually only got when I asked a girl out.
This was a huge deal. Jasper had never cut himself before, which meant he had to really want this.
To be real brothers. There was no chance I’d say no.
I mean, a blood ritual? Metal as fuck. Plus, I’d get a morbid souvenir to wear. Win-win.
“Okay, I’ll go first,” I announced excitedly. My voice cracked a little with nerves, but whatever.
I held the knife up under the dim light, a shiver of anticipation running down my spine.
It wasn’t new. I did it all the time for the emotional release.
But this was different. Better. This made my heart squeeze, like he was gonna finally see that I’d do anything for him, cutting myself included.
Hell, I’d probably jump off a bridge if he asked.
My hand was slick with sweat as I pressed the knife into the meat of my palm. I ignored the danger signals my brain kept firing off and swiped the blade across my skin, heart beating so hard and fast that I thought it was about to explode.
It was deeper than I’d meant it to be, and the blood quickly swelled up from the cut and pooled out over my palm, dripping down my wrist in a steady line.
There was no release—no pent-up negative emotions that left my body when the blood spilled. Instead, I was a live wire, high on adrenaline.
“Your turn,” I told Jasper, shoving the knife toward him before the carpet got wrecked.
He stared, his gaze flitting from my bloody hand to the knife. For a second, I thought he was gonna back out. My stomach dropped. He wasn’t allowed to ditch me, not anymore.
“Okay. Okay.” He swallowed thickly, steeling himself, his fingers skimming mine as he seized the knife by the handle.
I held my breath and watched him, his movements clumsy and uncertain. We shared a long look. He pursed his lips and held the blade to his hand, flinching in pain as he cut.
I blinked.
“Are you kidding me?” I sighed, grabbing his hand with my clean one and leaning in. “That’s nothing! How are you gonna fill up a vial with this?”
“Shut up, dude, I’ve never done this before,” he snapped, looking nervous.
“Just let me do it, idiot,” I insisted, releasing him and holding my hand out.
To my surprise, he passed the knife right back to me without arguing. Holy shit. He was really going to let me do it. He trusted me enough to hand me a weapon and ask me to use it on him. A thrill ran through me when I gripped his wrist to hold him still, his skin turning slick with my blood.
“I’ve got you, bro. Relax,” I promised.
I waited for several beats to see if he would change his mind, trying to read his expression. He seemed focused, brows drawn together, and eyes glued to our hands. When he didn’t pull away, I cut him quick. He hissed, jerking his hand back.
“That’s how it’s done,” I told him with pride. “Now, hurry up—let’s seal the deal.”
We pressed our bloody palms together and squeezed.
I grinned, buzzing with excitement. Then we fumbled with the vials, trying to find the best way to get the blood into the small openings.
A funnel of some sort probably would have helped, but we hadn’t thought that far ahead.
With a lot of cursing, blood streaking down our elbows, we finally figured it out.
We sat in silence, squeezing our fists and letting the blood drip into the glass.
“Real brothers?” Jasper asked quietly.
“Real brothers,” I said back.
“Did you forget you had an appointment?” Jasper’s voice pulled me out of the memory, the warmth that had begun to spread throughout my chest curling back in on itself. I was still in this stupid fucking apartment, of course.
“Huh?” I blinked, taking a moment to process what he’d said.
“There’s some mental health person here,” he whispered, meaning they were already in the apartment.
Right. The follow-up.
While I was in the hospital, I had agreed to a follow-up to be released. If I hadn’t, the psych hold would have been longer. I’d completely forgotten about it in the days since getting out, and now I had no time to prepare mentally.
“Oh. Yeah, I forgot about that.” I peeled myself out of bed and sluggishly made my way out to the living room.
On the couch was a young woman who had taken the liberty of opening up her briefcase on the coffee table and spreading out papers. Papers that would be in the trash as soon as we were done here.
“Hello, Milo. I’m Angela,” she greeted, gesturing to the spot next to her on the couch.
I looked back at Jasper, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded and watching the woman with a straight face. He caught me looking and cocked his head towards her.
I’m fucking going.
I plopped down on the couch next to Angela, immediately scanning the array of papers on the table.
Phone numbers, so many phone numbers—suicide prevention, therapists, group counselling recommendations—the works.
Some of them were even mental health workbooks, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be filling those out.
“Hey.” My body was rigid, the atmosphere unbearably awkward.
“How have you been doing the last couple of days?” she asked, her hands interlaced in her lap.
I hated mental health professionals with a burning passion.
They wanted to pick apart all of my abandonment issues, label me with things like borderline personality disorder, and stuff me full of pills that would make me boring.
I didn’t want to be boring. Who voluntarily took things that had side effects like depression and potentially lower sex drive?
“Good. My brother moved in with me,” I answered, gesturing to Jasper, a cry for help that went unanswered. This was all on me.
The information made the woman smile, a smile that reached her eyes. She must have figured that meant this would be easy work. I was on an upward trajectory, with a support system and all that jazz. Hooray.
“I’m so glad to hear you have family around to support you. That’s amazing,” she remarked, sifting through the papers sprawled across the table. “We have some mandatory questions to go through to make sure you’re doing okay and have access to help if you need it.”
“Okay.”
I watched with skepticism as she picked up the first stack of papers off the table, tapping them against the surface so all the sheets were flush.
“Awesome, let’s get started,” she said all too cheerfully, looking down at the first page. “So, Milo. If you are going to hurt yourself again, do you have a plan?”
Fucking kill me.